Why India Needs Its Own Menlo Park

Edison showed that invention works only when method, money and markets align, a lesson India needs to master.

Thomas Alva Edison is often celebrated as a prolific inventor, but rarely as an inventor of the process of invention itself. The popular image is of sudden inspiration. However, the reality was far more deliberate. Edison believed that invention could be designed, organized as a process, and executed through a method. He transformed creativity from a matter of chance into a disciplined activity that could be repeated, improved, and scaled. As India aspires to become a developed nation by 2047, this idea of inventing by design may be more valuable than any single breakthrough technology.

In hindsight, Edison’s most important invention was not only devices such as an electric bulb or a gramophone. It was the very process of inventing itself. Ironically, among his numerous patents, this was the one invention that was never patented, even though it generated far more value than any single product. Edison showed that invention need not depend on rare flashes of genius. It could be approached systematically, refined through experience, and embedded into everyday practice. What he created at Menlo Park was, in effect, a working blueprint for how innovation could be organised.

Repeatable Process

Edison treated invention as a repeatable process, not a one-time event. At his Menlo Park laboratory, one of the earliest models of an industrial research lab, problems were carefully defined, experiments systematically designed, and results meticulously recorded. Failure was not a setback. It was information. Edison tested hundreds of candidate materials for the filament of the electric bulb. Each unsuccessful attempt narrowed the search space. Progress came through structured elimination, not blind persistence.

Equally important, Edison did not work alone. Menlo Park was a collaborative enterprise involving engineers, chemists, machinists, and skilled craftsmen. Ideas moved freely across disciplines. Edison provided direction and judgment, but invention was collective. In modern terms, he created a tightly integrated innovation ecosystem long before such language became common.

Most importantly, Edison never separated invention from usefulness. He did not stop at inventing the electric bulb. He pursued the entire system around it, including power generation, distribution, switches, meters, and a viable business model. He understood that an invention succeeds only when it fits into everyday life. Discovery without deployment, for Edison, was unfinished work.

This distinction is critical for India today. The country produces a large volume of scientific papers, patents, and prototypes. Yet relatively few translate into products or services at scale. Academic incentives still lean heavily toward publications and citations, while societal impact is harder to reward consistently. Edison would have found this puzzling. For him, impact was the final test of invention.

Key Lessons

Why does Edison’s method matter so much for India’s future? Because India’s development challenges include clean water, affordable energy, healthcare access, sustainable agriculture, and resilient infrastructure. These challenges are complex and interconnected. They cannot be solved by isolated breakthroughs alone. They require iterative experimentation, field validation, cost reduction, and system-level thinking. The missing link is often not science, but the bridge between laboratory proof and field performance. Edison’s approach is particularly well suited to such problems.

A central pillar of Edison’s success was his close engagement with industry and finance. Investors, manufacturers, and users were part of the process from early stages. Risk was shared and feedback was continuous. This tight coupling between invention and industry is an area where India has often underperformed, especially when it comes to scaling indigenous technologies.

This is precisely where the Anusandhan National Research Foundation and the proposed national Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) fund acquire significance. The RDI fund is conceived as a large, pooled financing mechanism in which government support is deliberately used to crowd in industry investment. Its core purpose is to change the character of innovation itself by sharing risk between the public and private sectors, anchoring research in real industrial problems, supporting high-risk and high-impact ideas, and ensuring that promising technologies do not remain trapped in laboratories. In spirit, this closely mirrors Edison’s practice of aligning invention, capital and manufacturing from the outset.

For government, making the RDI fund effective will require more than allocation of resources. Clear and predictable intellectual property rules, faster contracting, flexible procurement, and regulatory space for pilot projects are essential. Edison succeeded because he could move quickly from experiment to demonstration to deployment. Without similar agility, industry participation is likely to remain cautious, regardless of intent.

Industry, in turn, must recognise that participation in such national innovation efforts is not corporate philanthropy. Edison’s enterprises helped create entirely new markets because industry was embedded in invention from the start. Indian industry has the scale, capital, and engineering depth to do the same.

The role of individual researchers is equally important. Edison did not view commercialization as a distraction from science. He saw it as the natural completion of the scientific process. Indian researchers need to become comfortable engaging with industry. This does not dilute scientific depth. It strengthens relevance and accountability.

Another necessary shift concerns attitudes toward failure. In India, failure is often equated with inefficiency or incompetence. Edison’s career shows the opposite. Well-designed experiments that fail quickly and inform the next step are essential to progress. When risk is shared through mechanisms such as the RDI fund, failure becomes collective learning rather than individual stigma.

Finally, Edison’s life underscores the importance of persistence. He refined imperfect ideas, revisited old concepts, and remained focused on long-term outcomes. In an age dominated by short project cycles and quick metrics, this lesson is especially relevant.

India does not need to replicate Edison’s technologies or his era. What it needs is to adopt his method. By using the RDI fund to bring industry decisively into the heart of innovation, India has an opportunity to convert scientific strength into industrial and societal leadership. As India looks toward 2047, the challenge is no longer a lack of ideas or talent. It is the need for systems that turn ideas into industries.

(The author is an ANRF Prime Minister Professor at COEP Technological University, Pune; former Director of the Agharkar Research Institute, Pune; and former Visiting Professor at IIT Bombay. Views personal)